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Knox County cancels TNReady for grades 3-8 after state terminates contract with test company

The Tennessee Department of Education has ended its contract with Measurement Inc., the company running the TNReady state assessment.

The contract termination means testing for grades 3-8, happening this week, was suspended. High school tests, which materials have arrived for, will continue.

Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre said that was “the only decision to make at this point.”

State Education Commissioner Candice McQueen announced Wednesday that after repeated delays, the state ended its contract with the North Carolina-based company tasked with making a Tennessee-specific test in 2014.

Wednesday was the latest deadline for testing materials to arrive in school districts, yet as of Wednesday morning, all districts in the state were still waiting on some grade 3-8 materials with 2 million documents yet to be shipped, the state said.

If districts have materials for a full subject grade test, such as fifth-grade math, schools do have the option of administering that exam, the state said in a news release. But the department will have limited student performance information for those grades, the state said. High school tests will be fully scored, the state said.

McIntyre said Knox County would suspend and cancel remaining TNReady tests for grades 3-8. He said the only exception would be middle school students who were scheduled to take high-school-level tests.

“It got to the point that it was a distraction and a frustration and a much bigger part of teachers, principals, parents and students’ days than it needs to be and that’s why we made the decision to shut it down,” McIntyre said.

This year was the first for the new state assessment for grades 3-11 and had repeated delays as well as concerns from educators. After the announcement, several education leaders in Knox County said they were happy with the decision, but wish it had been made sooner.

“It was absolutely the right thing to do and is unfortunate it took so long,” said Lauren Hopson, president of the Knox County Education Association.

Knox County Board of Education member Amber Rountree agreed and said an earlier decision would have meant less lost instructional time.

McIntyre praised teachers and principals for their flexibility throughout the changes and said the time scheduled for tests would now be instructional time.

But Hopson added that teachers dedicated so much time to test preparation that the instructional time will be to recover what was lost, not add lessons.

The canceled contract comes after a “tumultuous relationship” with Measurement Inc and repeated claims of “worst case scenario” from the company, McQueen said.

In February, the state moved the test from online to paper and pencil because of problems with Measurement Inc’s testing platform. The company then repeatedly delayed the arrival of the paper tests for the second portion of the test.

Last week, the state extended the testing window to accommodate for the delay, and McIntyre told middle and elementary principals they could set up testing schedules by school to accommodate for the delays and to not conflict with end-of-year activities.

“Measurement Inc.’s performance is deeply disappointing,” McQueen said in a statement. “We’ve exhausted every option in problem-solving with this vendor to assist them in getting these tests delivered. Districts have exceeded their responsibility and obligation to wait for grade 3-8 materials, and we will not ask districts to continue waiting on a vendor that has repeatedly failed us.”

The state had paid $1.6 million to Measurement Inc. of a $108 million contract. McQueen said those payments were for work done prior to calendar year 2016 and although invoices for 2016 had started to arrive, they had not been paid. She said the state will move forward to negotiate the terms of the contract with the company and potential damage payments.

She said there were no other financial costs to the state due to TNReady changes. For Knox County, McIntyre said the added costs were minimal and likely overtime paid to employees who were preparing testing materials.

Henry Scherich, president of Measurement, Inc. said the termination of the contract is a major disappointment to the company.

“It has been a very difficult job and we were within a couple days or so of having all the tests in the state,” he said.

Measurement Inc. was able to get all districts some middle and elementary test materials by the end of last week. High schools have all of the materials they need to administer the exam.

McQueen said Wednesday that if the state continued to wait on materials, all the tests weren’t expected to arrive until late next week for a state testing window that originally opened Monday.

And Rountree said after the announcement Wednesday that she was still concerned about the high school assessments because the reliability and validity of the vendor is questionable.

“I would encourage our district leaders to have some meaningful discussion around continuing high school testing,” she said.

Gov. Bill Haslam said in an email statement he shared in the profound frustration with the lack of performance by the state’s education testing vendor.

“The failure of the testing vendor to deliver the tests and meet its own obligations does not take away from the fact that Tennessee has created our own, higher standards, we have an improved assessment fully aligned with those standards, and we remain committed going forward to measuring student performance fairly and ensuring accountability for those results,” he said.

The issues have caused plenty of backlash from educators, parents and politicians fed up with the continual disruptions.

Some have called for a cancellation of all tests this year, while Tennessee House Democrats asked for a three-year reprieve for districts in accountability measures. Plans call for only a one-year stay.

Legislators have moved to hold teachers “harmless” on evaluation measures this year, and the Achievement School District announced it will not take over any low-performing schools for the 2017-18 school year, seemingly because of the testing issues.

In Knox County, Hopson said several teachers spoke out about concerns about TNReady but were not listened to by district leaders.Earlier this month, Rountree proposed a resolution to the county school board to support a delay of TNReady in grades 3-8 to address the amount of time students were spending on the test. The board didn’t pass the resolution; members said they were waiting for more guidance from McQueen.

McQueen stressed in her announcement that the challenges “have not diverted us from our goals.”

She said raw data for grades 3-8 will be available on an informational basis and high school scores will be available in the fall.

“Our work toward an aligned assessment plays a critical role in ensuring that all students are continuing to meet our high expectations and are making progress on their path to postsecondary and the workforce,” she said.

The commissioner said the state will move forward with finding a new vendor to score the high school tests and a new vendor for next year. She said she wants to move toward an online test that is shorter.